Forum search with time-dependent activity weighting

ABSTRACT

A search engine index measures and tracks one or more numeric indicators of activity at different times, including a most current time, in on-line forums and social networking sites. Such indicators may include, for example, a current volume per unit time of messages or data posted to the site, a moving average of such volume, a moving average of current participants over time, a count of current participants, other indication of site activity, or any combination of such indicators. The search engine is responsive to queries seeking forums ranked by activity for a defined time period, including a most current time. The search engine prioritizes search results to identify the specified sites or locations in order of activity (among other possible criteria) relative to a defined time.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This patent application is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.12/479,171, filed Jun. 5, 2009, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,002,820, whichclaims priority pursuant to 35 U.S.C. §119(e) to U.S. provisionalapplication Ser. No. 61/059,210, filed Jun. 5, 2008, which applicationsare incorporated by reference herein.

BACKGROUND

1. Field

The present disclosure relates to methods and systems for locatinginformation contained in disparate online forums.

2. Description of Related Art

Online forums are an increasingly popular tool for exchanging currentnews and opinions, and for social networking. As used herein, an “onlineforum” is a computer-implemented system or object that receives datainput transmitted from multiple clients operated by individual users,aggregates the incoming data into a forum data object having anorganized display format showing the input data optionally associatedwith an identifier for the contributing user, and posts or transmits theforum data object in response to newly received incoming data so thatthe forum data object is accessible to the multiple participatingclients and is continually updated with new submissions. In the forumcontext, to “post” means to publish in the forum. Examples of onlineforums include computer bulletin boards, online chat rooms, and webblogs such as are implemented using Internet technology and IP-addressedforum data objects. Further examples include proprietary technologysystems that utilize dedicated client software in combination with anetwork host to create a social networking environment as a form ofon-line game, such as, for example, Second Life™, Utherverse™, XboxLive™ and others.

When selecting an online forum to participate in out of many possibleforums of interest, users may employ a search engine to identify forumsthat match specified criteria. However, existing search enginetechnology cannot directly identify forums in which activity iscurrently highest, or in which activity is highest at particular timesof day in a repeated pattern. Such activity information may be ofinterest to many users, for use in selecting forums to participate in,for use in scheduling activities to take place in forums, or both.However, present search engines do not capture or display activityinformation for use in comparing and selecting forums of interest. Suchinformation is not readily apparent to existing search methods, despiteits potential value. Technology to bridge this gap would be desirable.

SUMMARY

Time-dependent activity indicia for online forum activity may becollected using a an indexing server in cooperation with one or more(typically many) servers hosting various online forums. The online forumhosts are configured to receive and publish time-stamped messages orother content from numerous clients. These contributions may be may beorganized by message thread or topic. Characteristically for forums, thetime of contribution is an important organizing parameter. In manyonline forums, the client-contributed content is organized primarily orexclusively chronologically in the forum publications. Thesepublications, comprising web pages or similar objects, comprise theonline forums or forum objects that are of interest to the end user.Activity in such forums may be defined in various different ways, butmay generally be understood as a quantity of user-contributed content tothe forum, per unit time. A time-dependent activity indicia refers to ameasurement of activity that varies as a function of time.

The indexing server monitors activity in target forums. Target forumsare selected using any suitable filter, for example average page viewsper day or frequency with which a forum is located using a topicalsearch. The indexing server may use any of various methods, or acombination of such methods, to monitor and obtain relevant activityindicia for each forum. For example, the indexing server may analyzeforum objects using a web crawler or similar technique, or receiveactivity reports from the forum host servers. The indexing server maycategorize activity indicia into designated categories, for example,page views per unit time, submissions per unit time, words per unittime, and store in a database or other data structure in associate withan identifier for the each respective forum to which the activityindicia relates. The indexing server may also compute parameters such asrunning averages, cumulative totals, and cyclical maxima and minima forthe activity data, which is also stored in the database.

The indexing server maintains the activity indicia database in a currentstate and provides the indicia in response to requests from searchengines. The search engine may then use the activity to organize orfilter search results. For example, the search engine may locate a listof forums relevant to a query search topic, request activity indicia forthe listed forums from the indexing server, then rank the listed forumsin order of current activity or other desired activity indicia. An enduser will thereby be able to determine which forums have the greatestactivity at designated times.

A more complete understanding of systems and methods for collecting andusing time-dependent activity indicia of online forum activity will beafforded to those skilled in the art, as well as a realization ofadditional advantages and objects thereof, by a consideration of thefollowing detailed description. Reference will be made to the appendedsheets of drawings which will first be described briefly.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a system diagram showing an example of a networked computersystem in which time-dependent activity indicia for use in forumselection may be implemented.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a system fortime-dependent activity indicia for use in forum searching or selection.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an alternative system for providingmultiple forums to a plurality of clients via a proprietary interface.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing a partial modeled physicalenvironment such as may be used in a virtual reality online forum.

FIG. 5 is a chart showing cyclical patterns in online activity as may bemeasured for online forums.

FIG. 6 is a simplified screenshot showing an example such as may be usedto present forum search results ranked by order of forum activitymeasures.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart showing an example of a method for providingtime-dependent activity indicia for use in forum searching or selection.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present technology provides a computer-implemented method or systemfor providing time-dependent activity indicia for use in forum searchingor selection, that overcomes the deficiencies of the prior art. Themethod or system may be implemented in a networked computing environment100, as shown in FIG. 1. An exemplary networked environment maycomprise, for example, a plurality of clients 102, 104 (two of manyshown) in communication via wide area network components such asInternet 106 with at least one indexing server 108. Each client 102, 104may comprise a processor, a input device, for example, a keyboard,pointing device, touchscreen, or microphone configured to receive inputfrom a human user and to translate the input usable signals for theprocessor, and an output device, for example a display screen orspeaker, to provide human-perceptible output in response to processorcontrol. The indexing server 108 may operate one or more application toperform forum activity indexing and data output as described herein. Theapplication may be encoded on a computer-readable media (not shown)operably associated with the server 108. Environment 100 may furtherinclude other servers, including but not limited to content servers,forum servers, and search engine servers (not shown), which maycooperate with the indexing server 108 to receive input from the client,develop indexing information, and output indexing information to clients102, 104. Various arrangements and uses of such services will becomeapparent to one of ordinary skill in view of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2 shows one exemplary arrangement 200 including a plurality ofindependent clients 202, 204, 206 communicating with a search/indexingserver 208 and two independent forum servers 210, 212 via a wide areanetwork 214. In the illustrated example, the search/indexing server isconfigured to perform forum searching and indexing, receiving searchrequests directly from clients 202, 204, 206, and providing activityindexing and search results directly to the clients. In an alternativeembodiment, the indexing and searching functions may be distributedamong two or more cooperating servers. For example, a search engine(“first”) server may provide a search engine interface and handle searchrequests from the independent clients. An indexing (“second”) server mayperform activity indexing and provide activity indexing data to thefirst server in response to a data request. The first server mayincorporate the index data in a search results list provided to arequesting client.

Forum servers 210, 212 (two of many shown) exemplify hosts for variousindependent Internet-compatible forums, for example, computer bulletinboards, web blogs, user comment pages, newsgroups, chat rooms, and soforth. Each host may receive participant contribution data from theremote clients 202. “Participant contribution data” as used hereinrefers to text, image, video, and/or audio data originating from aclient participating in a online forum and designated for publication asa user posting/contribution in that forum. The forum host organizes theincoming participant contribution data according to the forum'sorganizing principles and publishes a forum web page 214, 216 or otherobject that provides access to the participant contribution data toforum members or participants. Optionally, the forum host filters,edits, or removes defective or objectionable participant contributiondata before or after it is published in the forum. The forum page orother published object may be refreshed in response to participantcontribution data as it is newly received by each respective forumserver, at periodic intervals, in response to requests for the forumdata, or any combination of the foregoing. In the alternative, theparticipant contribution data may be placed in a forum database as it isreceived and processed by the forum server, where it becomes availablevia a database interface page. Other suitable methods of hosting anonline forum may also be known. Whatever method is used, the hostedforum objects (for example, forum pages 214, 216) have thecharacteristic of continuously changing in response to the addition ofnew participant contribution data. The more active the forum, the morequickly the forum object may change.

Rapidly changing data objects present a challenge to traditional searchengines in that frequent refreshing of the search index is required tomaintain search accuracy. This may be dealt with in various ways, suchas by identifying data objects that change frequent as candidates forbeing considered forum objects, and scheduling known forum objects formore frequent indexing. Such solutions, however, are merely ancillary tothe objectives and methods of the present disclosure. A differentproblem is faced by a user that seeks to optimize a forum selectionprocess, or the timing of a forum event. One such problem is toidentify, out of any given set of forums, which forums have the greatestrelative activity. Another such problem is to determine, again for anygiven selection of forums, what relative level of activity may beexpected in each forum at a particular time, or when a desired relativelevel of activity is most likely to occur. For example, a prospectiveforum participant may desire to select, out of a group of forumsidentified with the topic of “U.S. National Politics,” that forum orforums with the highest current level of activity. For further example,a forum participant may desire to know what time of day a certaindesignated forum has historically experienced the greatest average levelof activity.

Forum “activity” as used herein should be distinguished from inherentexternal characteristics of the forum data object, such as the mostrecent refresh time or a number of refreshes in a particular timeperiod. Activity does not refer to such characteristics that are mereconsequences of forum management by a forum host. Instead, forumactivity refers to any one or combination of the following factors (a)the number of clients (or of clients having designated characteristics)requesting access to or viewing the forum object at a particular instantof time or within a designated limited time period (for example, themost recent second, minute, hour, day, etc.); (b) the rate at whichparticipant contribution data (however measured) is being received forposting or is posted in a forum, again within any useful designated timeperiod, for example, new posts per minute or words per minute; (c) arate of change of (a) or (b); or (d) a quality of data received per unittime, for example, the number of 5-star rated postings received in thelast 24 hours, wherein star ratings are published by the forum inresponse to user feedback.

As defined above, activity constitutes a machine-measurable statedirectly associated with the computer-implemented forum object,attributable to data submissions from participating clients. Generally,forum activity may be most easily measured directly at each forum host,for example at hosts 210, 212, although the technology is not limited tothis. Each forum host may execute, as part of its hosting process, anapplication or object that measures and records forum activity on atime-indexed basis. In the alternative, or in addition, the forum pageor other object may be periodically processed by an application that isexternal to the forum host to measure forum activity that is discernablefrom information published in the forum object. It should be appreciatedthat “forum object” may include multiple linked Web pages or similarlinked network objects that as a group make up a discrete forum.

Search/indexing server 208 may therefore receive forum activity datafrom various forum servers or hosts by any suitable method. For example,server 208 may maintain a database that is updated in response toreceiving periodic data updates from remote forum hosts, according to apredetermined data sharing arrangement. In the alternative, or inaddition, the server 208 may query one or more particular forum hostsfor an update of forum activity data at periodic intervals, or inresponse to a search request from a system client. In yet anotheralternative or addition, the server 208 may access the forum data object(for example, pages 214, 216) and measure the forum activity such as canbe discerned from the object itself. Some types of activity, for examplethe number of clients requesting access to the object, may not bediscernable from inspection of the published forum object. Otheractivity, for example the number of postings in a defined time period,may be discernable from such inspection.

The search indexing server 208 may process activity data to develop oneor more numerical indicators of forum activity level. The server 208 maystore the indicators in a database or data table in association with anidentifier for each forum and each time, or time period, to which theindicators pertain. In the alternative, or in addition, server 208 maycalculate relevant activity indicators on the fly, in response to a datarequest. Server 208 may provide requested activity indicators inresponse to requirements from an internal search query or remote clientrequest. For example, server 208 may receive a query from client 202,requesting “top five most currently active forums concerning baseball.”In response, server 208 may first perform a search to identify allforums concerning baseball. Then, the server may query an activity indexdatabase to determine a most current activity indicator for eachbaseball forum. The server may then rank all the baseball forums inorder of the returned activity indicator, and return a list of the topfive most active baseball forums, rank ordered by activity indicator, tothe requesting client 202.

FIG. 3 shows an alternative system 300 for providing multiple forums toa plurality of clients 302 (one of many shown) via a proprietaryinterface, for example, in a massively multi-user online virtual realitysystem for social networking or gaming. System 300 may also include avirtual reality host 304 which may communicate with the plurality ofclients via a wide area network 306. Host 304 may provide state dataregarding a multiuser (i.e., process in which multiple clientsparticipate simultaneously) to each participating client, for exampleclient 302. Each client may cooperatively operate a host interfaceprocess 308, a modeling process 310, and a user interface process 312within a virtual reality client application 314. The client application314 may receive user input data and provide it to the host process 304.The host 304 aggregates multiple client input data, which may includeparticipant contribution data for any forums hosted as part of, orassociated with, the virtual reality process, to continuously providestate data for a modeled virtual reality process and associated forums.The host may provide the state data to the client VR process 314, whichprovides an output of the modeled environment as it changes through timeand forum data, for example providing a visual display on monitor 316.

The virtual reality host may model a virtual physical environmentthrough which each client may navigate via an associated avatar. FIG. 4shows a schematic diagram of a partial modeled physical environment 400,in plan view. The exemplary model includes a modeled city street 402,along which are placed various modeled building 404, 406, 408, 410 and412. Any number of avatars, for example avatars 412, 414, may be modeledin response to client input or system input within the modeledenvironment 400. One of the functions of the virtual reality environmentis to provide an intuitive and visually stimulating navigationalinterface for all sorts of online activities, including participation invarious forums. For example, environment 400 may include a firstbuilding 408 given the appearance of a singles' bar and intended toattract clients interested in a forum for meeting like-minded singles.To participate in the singles forum, the client may move aclient-controlled avatar inside the “singles bar” 408. Once “inside” thebar 408, the client may automatically participate in a chat session withother clients that also have avatars within the “bar” or be given anoption to do so. Other modeled buildings may provide access of differentsorts of forums.

Despite a different user interface and architecture, the virtual realityenvironment 400 may host essentially the same types of forums as areexecuted in World Wide Web environments. One difference is that,currently, no uniform standard exists for hosting virtual realityprocesses. Therefore, all VR activity, including forum activity, isgenerally controlled through a unified proprietary host process. Assuch, searching for forums, indexing forum activity, and reporting onforum activity as described for World Wide Web processes may occur aspart of the host process, instead of via cooperation between externalhost, search, and indexing servers. However, user of a VR process doesnot preclude external forum hosting or searching, as computing bridgesmay be built to link a proprietary VR process with external forumprocesses, search engines, or other services. FIGS. 3 and 4 are merelyintended to illustrate how the inventive concepts herein may be appliedin contexts other than the World Wide Web.

For example, within a virtual reality process with a large number ofsubscribing clients it is not unthinkable that dozens or even hundredsof alternative forums may be available at any given time. Navigating tonumerous ones of these forums to find one in which suitable activity isoccurring, and at which times, may be tedious for subscribing clients.Therefore, a VR host may offer a forum search function by which a clientmay search available forums to quickly locate one of more forums inwhich the desired level of activity is occurring, or reporting on one ormore activity measures over daily/weekly/monthly or other periods. Theclient may then navigate an avatar to one of those forums to participatein the forum activities, or discern activity patterns in the variousforums.

In general, an indexing host, whether for general or proprietary forums,may determine and record an activity index over time, resulting in indexdata that may be plotted against time to reveal periodic activitypatterns. For example, FIG. 5 shows an exemplary comparative plot 500comparing the activity of two different forums over time. The highestcurrent level of activity ‘A’ in a first forum is evident from thedashed indicator line 502 for the first forum, although activity isdeclining. A lower level of activity ‘B’ in a second forum is evidentfrom the solid indicator line 504, although activity is increasing. Boththe first and second forums have approximately the same peak level ‘C’in the chosen activity index over the past reporting period. Thesinusoidal pattern of the indicator lines may indicate, for example, adiurnal variation caused by differences in the geographic location offorum participants. Such patterns may be of interest, for example, topersons looking for a forum with a particular geographic predominance inthe participants, or for other reasons.

FIG. 6 shows an exemplary search result list 600 such as may be returnedby a search/indexing process in response to a client query, and outputon a client display. Each item 602, 604, 606 on the list may comprise anentry for a forum concerning a topic specified by the query, for example“baseball.” Each entry may comprise a description of the forum and/or ahyperlink to it, or other address. To the right of the description,several numeric activity indicators are listed for each entry, in thisexample, a most current activity level relative to the time the querywas received, an average level over the past reporting period (forexample, past day, week, or month), and a peak level over the pastreporting period. Numeric indicator values may, in the alternative or inaddition, be displayed List 600 may further include a link 608 to achart showing a comparative activity indicator over time, as shown inFIG. 5.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing exemplary steps of a method 700 such as maybe performed by an indexing host application or server to providetime-dependent activity indicia for use in forum searching or selection.Instructions for performing the illustrated steps may be encoded in acomputer-readable media for causing a host computer to perform themethod, using methods as known in the art.

At 702, the host may determine which forums are to be indexed, that is,identifying the forums for which at least one activity index will bemeasured and tracked. In an embodiment, the host may identify all knownforums, wherein known forums are identified by the host using a webcrawler or other software that scans the Internet to discover publishedforum objects. In the alternative, or in addition, the host may identifyforums that are located in response to user search queries. Thisapproach may be appropriate where the indexing host provides activityindex data to an external search engine operating a client interface. Ithas the advantage of limiting the forums that are indexed to forums thatare actually found in response to user queries, therefore preventingwasting indexing resources on forum in which there is no apparent userinterest. Conversely, because new forums of interest cannot bepredicted, the host will not possess historical activity index data forforums that are requested for the first time. The host may ceaseindexing forums some time after (for example, weeks, months, or years)the last apparent user interest in the forum. Another approach is tolimit indexed forums to those hosted by the indexing host, or by one ormore specific forum hosts cooperatively associated with the indexinghost. This approach may be suitable for indexing proprietary forums suchas operated via multiuser online virtual reality hosts. Yet anotherapproach is to develop activity indexes in response to specific userrequests. For example, forum operators or users may register aparticular forum for indexing by the host. In general, the set ofindexed forums should not be static and should change over time toreflect forums having a pattern of recent activity or interest. Suchforums may be identified in a list or database maintained by theindexing host.

At periodic intervals, the host may monitor forum activity 704 in theidentified forums. As previously described, activity may be tracked bythe forum host and reported to the indexing host. For example, amonitoring application may be distributed from the indexing host andoperate on participating forums to monitor and report activity data tothe indexing host. In the alternative, or in addition, the indexing hostmay operating web crawling software or other means for scanningpublished forum data to measure levels of current and past activity. Forexample, many forums publish member statistics and current forum viewingstatistics on the forum pages. Web crawling software may be used tocollect these statistics for use in activity indexing. For furtherexample, the web crawling software may analyze forum objects to quantifypast activity by a number of posted messages and time of posting of eachmessage on the forum.

The indexing host may continually collect activity measurements andprepare activity indexes 706 from the provided data. As previouslydescribed, activity indexes are numerical indicators of (a) the numberof clients (or of clients having designated characteristics) requestingaccess to or viewing the forum object at a particular instant of time orwithin a designated limited time period (for example, the most recentsecond, minute, hour, day, etc.); (b) the rate at which participantcontribution data (however measured) is being received for posting or isposted in a forum, again within any useful designated time period, forexample, new posts per minute or words per minute; (c) a rate of changeof (a) or (b); or (d) a quality of data received per unit time. Forexample, the number of current viewers may be measured in five-minuteintervals, and this number stored to provide a historical pattern ofactivity, including derivative indicators such as moving averages or thelike.

At 708, the indexing host may receive requests for indexing data. Thesemay occur, for example, as part of a search engine process thatidentifies forums in response to user queries. For example, a searchengine may request specified index data for all results appearing on asearch results list. In general, the indexing host may operate as ageneral data service configured to provide various different indexingdata responsive to internal or external data requests.

At 710, the indexing host may retrieve and/or generate the requestedindexing data in response to an incoming data request, configured foreventual output on the requesting client, for example in a screen asshown in FIG. 6. The responsive indexing data may be output in a formatfor display directly by the indexing host, or formatted by anintermediary client such a search engine host before transmission to theend user client. The search engine may use the reported activity indicesfor each forum to prioritize or filter search reports reported to asearch engine client.

Method 700 merely exemplifies a method for providing time-dependentactivity indicia for use in forum searching or selection. The presenttechnology is not limited by this example.

Having thus described a preferred embodiment of forum searching usingtime-dependent activity weighting, it should be apparent to thoseskilled in the art that certain advantages of the within system havebeen achieved. It should also be appreciated that various modifications,adaptations, and alternative embodiments thereof may be made withoutdeparting from the scope and spirit of the present technology. Thefollowing claims define the scope of what is claimed.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: configuring, by acomputer, a monitoring application configured to monitor forum activityin one or more online forums accessible over a computer network, whereinthe forum activity is correlated to a rate of contributions from aplurality of clients participating in the one or more online forums;distributing, via the computer network, the monitoring application to ahost computer operating the one or more online forums; receiving forumactivity measurements from the host computer; and publishing an index offorum activity measurements for each of the one or more online forums,using the computer, wherein the forum activity measurements indicatemeasures of the forum activity per unit of time for different past timeperiods; and wherein the published index ranks the one or more onlineforums in order of forum activity such that an end user may determinewhich one of the one or more online forums has a highest forum activitymeasurement at a designated time.
 2. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising receiving a data request for forum activity measurementspertaining to the one or more online forums; and serving the forumactivity measurements in response to the data request.
 3. The method ofclaim 1, further comprising identifying the one or more online forums.4. The method of claim 1, wherein the forum activity measurementscomprise counts of clients requesting access to each of the one or moreonline forums within a designated time period.
 5. The method of claim 1,wherein the forum activity measurements comprise a rate of change in thecounts of clients requesting access to each of the one or more onlineforums within a designated time period.
 6. The method of claim 1,wherein the forum activity measurements comprise rates at whichparticipant contribution data is posted to each of the one or moreonline forums within a designated time period.
 7. The method of claim 1,wherein the forum activity measurements comprise a rate of change in therates at which participant contribution data is posted to each of theone or more online forums within a designated time period.
 8. The methodof claim 1, wherein the forum activity measurements comprise a qualityof data received per unit time.
 9. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising receiving the forum activity measurements at periodicintervals.
 10. A system comprising: a server comprising a computerprocessor and memory, configured for serving a search engine interfaceand handling search requests from clients; an activity index applicationimplemented in a processor and memory operatively associated with theserver, and configured to provide an index of forum activitymeasurements for each of one or more online forums, wherein the forumactivity measurements indicate measures of the forum activity per unitof time for different past time periods; and wherein the index ranks theone or more online forums in order of forum activity such that an enduser may determine which one of the one or more online forums has ahighest forum activity measurement at a designated time.
 11. The systemof claim 10, wherein the server is further configured to rank searchresults responsive to searches for online forums according to the forumactivity measurements from the activity index application.
 12. Thesystem of claim 10, further comprising an activity monitoringapplication implemented in a processor and memory operatively associatedwith the activity index application, and configured to monitor the forumactivity in the one or more online forums.
 13. The system of claim 10,wherein the server is further configured for receiving a data requestfor forum activity measurements pertaining to the one or more onlineforums; and serving the forum activity measurements in response to thedata request.
 14. The system of claim 10, wherein forum activitymeasurements comprise counts of clients requesting access to each of theone or more online forums within a designated time period.
 15. Thesystem of claim 10, wherein the forum activity measurements comprise arate of change in the counts of clients requesting access to each of theone or more online forums within a designated time period.
 16. Thesystem of claim 10, wherein the forum activity measurements compriserates at which participant contribution data is posted to each of theone or more online forums within a designated time period.
 17. Thesystem of claim 10, wherein the forum activity measurements comprise arate of change in the rates at which participant contribution data isposted to each of the one or more online forums within a designated timeperiod.
 18. The system of claim 10, wherein the forum activitymeasurements comprise a measure of quality of participant contributiondata posted to each of the one or more online forums.
 19. Anon-transitory computer-readable medium encoded with instructionsconfigured, when executed by a computer processor, to cause the computerto: measure forum activity in online forums accessible over a computernetwork, wherein the forum activity is defined based on a rate ofuser-contributed content by all clients posting messages to the onlineforums; maintain the forum activity measurements in a database, theforum activity measurements indicating measures of the forum activityper unit of time for different past time periods in association withidentifiers for respective ones of the online forums; and rank theonline forums in order of forum activity such that an end user maydetermine which one of the one or more online forums has a highest forumactivity measurement at a designated time.
 20. The non-transitorycomputer-readable medium of claim 19, further comprising instructionsconfigured, when executed by a computer processor, to cause the computerto calculate average forum activity at cyclically recurring time periodsas a measure of forum activity maintained in the database.
 21. Thenon-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 19, further comprisinginstructions configured, when executed by a computer processor, to causethe computer to determine one or more cyclically recurring time periodsfor each online forum during which average forum activity achieves amaximum value.